It’s been interesting to see the way Mr. DuBe teaches and replies to students’ answers. I remember one day, he was asking the students if they knew what a word meant. Someone raised their hand and he replied, “not quite but there are some aspects to it that I can see where it applies.” After that he just explained what it meant. I’m actually not sure how the girl responded to this but I would assume she could either feel reinforced to keep participating because Mr. DuBe affirmed the she was correct in some ways or she could feel embarrassed for not getting it right.

Another example I have is from Wednesdays and Friday’s 2nd period. The volleyball girls always have a game that just happened or a game coming up on the weekend. Mr. DuBe always asks about their performance and wether they took a W (win) or not. He seems pretty invested in how they are doing, which he expresses in his excitement, intrigued posture, and follow up questions. Mr. DuBe’s reaction reinforces the volleyball girls talking and sharing their wins and losses at the start of the class. This probably encourages the girls to want to do better at their games to keep up their score and be able to talk about heir successes on the court.

I want to say I am more a behaviorist, just because cognitivists are more structural and in some ways feels restrictive. I like the idea that students learn better when they do have reinforcements that push them to do better. However, it does put a lot of pressure on the teacher to do right by the students in their reactions to students. Cognitive learning is definitely part of learning but its more of a generalization rather than something individual like behaviorism in my opinion where responses to reinforcement depends on the each student.

Other observations

This week I was helping out a girl who has been absent for the past 3 weeks due to the flu. It was was my first time helping her with her essay outline. She was trying to elaborate on her topic sentence about why she loved spending time with her family in Arizona. She had her ideas already set in place but she was so concerned with having the perfect phrasing. I could tell she was getting frustrated but tried not to show it. She jokingly said something along the lines of “oh you have to work with the dub kids.” That took me by surprise because never would I have imagined someone to bluntly make a statement like that. I replied like no you actually do understand this stuff you’ve just been gone because you were sick. She just moved on. This made me think back to identity formation and how the act of taking students out of the classroom can impact a student’s perception of themselves as a student and even a person.

I also had a really rough time on Friday. I ended up switching my 2nd period for 1st period on Friday due to scheduling conflict. I was working with a group of students, Tristan who was the kid I worked with on the first day, and two other girls. One of the girls was working independently, avoiding talking to me or the other students. Tristan kept getting distracted and also talking to the other girl Stefanie. I asked him to focus but he just wouldn’t. I would also ask him follow up questions about his outline so he could get writing and he was not listening. In a way he undermined my authority when I tried helping him with follow up questions and he replied, “Well I knew what I was going to ask before you asked me _____ question.” I felt so embarrassed but just ignored his comment. With him I learned that it’s better to work with him one on one rather than in a group. I still don’t know how to go about my interaction with him just because I understand where he is coming from but at the same time it’s disrespectful. I didn’t want to be one of those authority figures that perhaps lost hope.

• This topic was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by Clarissa Guzman.